Nueva Planta decrees in the context of "Ferdinand II of Aragon"

The Kingdom of Aragon (Aragonese: Reino d'Aragón; Catalan: Regne d'Aragó; Latin: Regnum Aragoniae; Spanish: Reino de Aragón) was a medieval and early modern kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain. It became a part of the larger Crown of Aragon, which also included other territories—the Principality of Catalonia (which included the former Catalan Counties), the Kingdom of Valencia, the Kingdom of Majorca, and other possessions that are now part of France, Italy, and Greece—that were also under the rule of the King of Aragon, but were administered separately from the Kingdom of Aragon.

In 1479, upon John II of Aragon's death, the crowns of Aragon and Castile were united to form the nucleus of modern Spain. The Aragonese lands retained autonomous parliamentary and administrative institutions, such as the Corts. The arrangement remained until the Nueva Planta decrees, promulgated between 1707 and 1715 by Philip V of Spain in the aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession, centralised power in Spain. However, the title "King of Aragon" would continue to be used by the centralised Spanish crown.

The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then Castilian king, Ferdinand III, to the vacant Leonese throne. It continued to exist as a separate entity after the personal union in 1469 of the crowns of Castile and Aragon with the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs up to the promulgation of the Nueva Planta decrees by Philip V in 1716.

In 1492, the voyage of Christopher Columbus and the discovery of the Americas were major events in the history of Castile. The West Indies, Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea were also a part of the Crown of Castile when transformed from lordships to kingdoms of the heirs of Castile in 1506, with the Treaty of Villafáfila, and upon the death of Ferdinand the Catholic. The discovery of the Pacific Ocean, the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the conquest of the Inca Empire, the Spanish conquest of New Granada as well as the conquest of the Philippines all helped shape the Crown of Castile into a global empire in the 16th Century.

The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile (r. 1474–1504) and King Ferdinand II of Aragon (r. 1479–1516), whose marriage and joint rule marked the de facto unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, as they were both descended from John I of Castile. To remove the obstacle that this consanguinity would otherwise have posed to their marriage under canon law, they were given a papal dispensation by Sixtus IV. They married on October 19, 1469, in the city of Valladolid; Isabella was 18 years old and Ferdinand a year younger. Most scholars generally accept that the unification of Spain can essentially be traced back to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. Their reign was called by W.H. Prescott "the most glorious epoch in the annals of Spain."

Spain was formed as a dynastic union of two crowns rather than a unitary state, as Castile and Aragon remained separate kingdoms until the Nueva Planta decrees of 1707–1716. The court of Ferdinand and Isabella was constantly on the move in order to bolster local support for the crown from local feudal lords. The title of "Catholic King and Queen" was officially bestowed on Ferdinand and Isabella by Pope Alexander VI in 1494, in recognition of their defence of the Catholic faith within their realms.

Philip V (Spanish: Felipe V; 19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746) was king of Spain from 1 November 1700 to 14 January 1724 and again from 6 September 1724 to his death in 1746. His total reign (45 years, 9 months and 8 days) is the longest in the history of the Spanish monarchy, surpassing Philip IV. Although his ascent to the throne precipitated the War of the Spanish Succession, Philip V instigated many important reforms in Spain, most especially the centralization of power of the monarchy and the suppression of regional privileges, via the Nueva Planta decrees, and restructuring of the administration of the Spanish Empire on the Iberian Peninsula and its overseas regions.

Philip was born into the French House of Bourbon during the reign of his grandfather King Louis XIV. He was the second son of Louis, Grand Dauphin, and was third in line to the French throne after his father and his elder brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy. Philip was not expected to become a monarch, but his great-uncle King Charles II of Spain was childless. Philip's father had a strong claim to the Spanish throne, but since Philip's father and elder brother were expected to inherit the French throne, Charles named Philip as his heir in his will. Philip succeeded in 1700 as the first Spanish monarch of the House of Bourbon.

The Perfect Fusion (Italian: Fusione perfetta) was the 1847 act of the Savoyard King Charles Albert of Sardinia which abolished the administrative differences between the mainland states (Savoy and Piedmont) and the island of Sardinia within the Kingdom of Sardinia, in a fashion similar to the Nueva Planta decrees between the Crown of Castile and the realms of the Crown of Aragon between 1707 and 1716 and the Acts of Union between Great Britain and Ireland in 1800.

The once-Aragonese Kingdom of Sardinia had become a possession of the House of Savoy in 1720, and it had continued to be ruled as during the era of the Spanish Empire.

The Kingdom of Valencia (Valencian: Regne de València; Spanish: Reino de Valencia; Latin: Regnum Valentiae), located in the eastern shore of the Iberian Peninsula, was one of the component realms of the Crown of Aragon.

The Kingdom of Valencia was formally created in 1238 when the Moorish taifa of Valencia was taken in the course of the Reconquista. It was dissolved, alongside the other components of the old crown of Aragon, by Philip V of Spain in 1707, by means of the Nueva Planta decrees, as a result of the Spanish War of Succession.

This is a list of the kings and queens of Aragon. The Kingdom of Aragon was created sometime between 950 and 1035 when the County of Aragon, which had been acquired by the Kingdom of Navarre in the tenth century, was separated from Navarre in accordance with the will of King Sancho III (1004–35). In 1164, the marriage of the Aragonese princess Petronila (Kingdom of Aragon) and the Catalan count Ramon Berenguer IV (County of Barcelona) created a dynastic union from which what modern historians call the Crown of Aragon was born. In the thirteenth century the kingdoms of Valencia, Majorca and Sicily were added to the Crown, and in the fourteenth the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica. The Crown of Aragon continued to exist until 1713 when its separate constitutional systems (Catalan Constitutions, Aragon Fueros, and Furs of Valencia) were abolished by the Nueva Planta decrees at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession.